I share with you the keys to freedom I have been given because they are not mine to keep.

What you do with the gleanings you may find here in my posts, and elsewhere, is not my business … that would be between you & Source. It is up to you to decide whether what you read here is true.

Only bear in mind that what we choose to believe will determine the quality of life we experience.

For the Reality Formula teaches us that when we believe what we think we automatically feel and act as if it's true – and when we react from believing what we think is true, we will act in ways that invite others to respond to us in ways that prove us right (about what we believe.)

As we learn to challenge our assumptions and life-long beliefs, we may begin to question (I did anyway!) the whole nature of Truth. And with the support of a Living Intelligence, we may come to the peace-giving realization (at least I did) that EVERYTHING is a story, made true by our own belief in it (regardless of whether it's a positive or negative story that we're believing …).

Knowing this gives us the ability to become “conscious collaborators” with Source in co-creating our own (hopefully much happier) Reality. We do so by choosing carefully where to invest our belief because we understand that the beliefs we choose to empower will make ALL the difference in how and what we experience in the world.

For me, I am a mouthpiece, no more, no less, for the Universal Intelligence that is equally available to us all – in the same way your own ability to serve as a conduit is possible, the privilege has been granted for me, through the process I share with you daily, to clear the mental obstructions & come into a deeper surrender for the Life Flow of Source to move this vehicle called “my self” in ways that serve It. I am blessed.

Let this then be your daily aspiration – to become a lightly balanced & tenaciously committed surfer on the waves of the Creative Flow of Source.

Attend to the resistances that keep you from gliding effortlessly through the Universal Waves & remember that the Waters upon which you surf all come from the mighty Sea of Love.

In my morning quietness, I had a ‘waking dream' – or would you call it vision? – that I thought some of you might appreciate. 🙂

At first I saw streams of light energy coming from my mind in scattered patterns, they were beautiful but undirected; unfocused would be a good word to describe them … but then I noticed that by exerting focused intention I could “corral” the light streams into a centralized force that became what looked like water flowing together into a stream.What started out appearing as small trickles or rivulets of water coming together into small streams, began to grow, filling larger and larger channels or “creek-beds” (as we grew up calling them) and soon these coalesced into a deep rushing river.

Suddenly there was a man tumbling downstream, carried by the forceful stream, and dressed in a business suit, he swirled along in the whirling water, going pell-mell against his will, his resistance made obvious by his flailing arms and vain attempts to grasp at that which was passing by in his desire to hang on.

Suddenly I heard the words, “This is the river of time …” and immediately my interest in what I was seeing increased … I began to see a powerful metaphor about the illusion of time.

I realized that we, each one of us, create a mental flow of energy, that is corralled into focus by whatever belief system we have locked on to. That focus becomes our point of reference, our primary and unique way of seeing the world. Through that point of reference, or lens, whether we are conscious of it or not, whether we want the results, or like them or not, we create the life stream that we are traveling on. It is a stream of mental energy created by our beliefs that we project out into the world of form, where it becomes the physical constructs of our own mental world.

Some of us robe ourselves in the roles of the world, and are not prepared for ‘life in the flow.' We only know how to resist it constantly, We thrash about and fight Reality every step of the way. Others realize, usually after much battering about by life, that the stream of energy that we are resisting comes from the fount of our own thinking minds, and we begin to relax a bit more and not take ourselves, and life quite so seriously.

One of the more clever parts or the ‘vision' seems to suggest (at least to me) – that this mind-created flow we are traveling in is not only an illusion based on our own beliefs, but that it becomes the illusion we label as “time” – perhaps, for lack of a better way to describe the journey down this river of life we're on!

Hmmm … to think of time as a river of energy created out of our own belief system. … food for thought for sure! The life changes that we associate with time passing, may actually be us witnessing the flow of our own mental manifestations, with things, events, people, etc. moving past us … this means it's not time that is passing by so fast, but the unfolding of our story that we are watching move by, in the same way we watch a movie move through it's story of characters, and events … What we experience as ‘time passing' is actually our own thought forms arising & dissipating in life as if created & moved by some outside force. There IS a force acting upon them, but it is not ‘time,' but the inner directed force of co-creative, life-energy, corralled into focus by intention-set beliefs (that are often not conscious), that we witness parading past us in the form of events, and people who are vibrating on that same energy current.

It's not time that passes, but the mind's creations that come and go, form and dissolve… because that is the nature of mentally created form life.

But there is an eternal present, in our metaphor, it is the sky. It is always present, contains the “time” flow, but is not governed by it. It never passes … is always present, stable, unmoving, and unchanging; It is always there. This aptly describes the Source that created us … and these “rivers” of energy that we tumble down and resist mightily are but sojourns and adventures mind-made and ‘Source-allowed for the purpose of teaching us how to consciously corral our energy into rivers of kind intention that we can float upon, and look up at the face of our Creator looking back at us, knowing there is no place to go, only events to witness and adventures to enjoy, simply life moving in the Now.

Recently the life of a friend, and fellow wayfarer on the path to consciousness, was taken by an act of ruthless brutality. In our struggle to understand how such a bright light could be so suddenly snuffed out by one whose thinking is clearly distorted … and left with questions like, “how do we even begin to think of forgiving? Is it permissible even, much less possible, to forgive someone who ends a life, especially of someone we love? If not, then are we obligated to despise them forever, to build a wall of hatred between us, in some crazy effort to punish the perpetrator, or protect ourselves from him? And don't we end up then, by insisting on wearing the armor of hate, become just as mad and distorted as we accuse them of being?

If I could speak to the perpetrator of my friend's death, here is what I imagine I'd like to say:

Dear Perpetrator,

I speak to you, not as your judge, but as a fellow sufferer who knows a little about what it is to torment oneself with thoughts of rejection, isolation, jealousy, and revenge. Truly the only difference between you and me may be simply that I have a set of tools that allows me to step back from destructively reacting so that I can see what my thoughts are doing to me, rather than to blindly react out of them with unfortunate, even disasterous results.

Like you and every other human being on planet Earth, I, too, do what I do because I believe what I think. This is because the feelings that drive our behavior are generated by our thoughts – only always! So when we believe what we're thinking, we feel and act as if what we think is true which means we automatically act in ways that bring us the very results we expect, and thus prove our unhappy story to be true.

Applying this idea to the way we perceive life changes everything – but the truth is that most of us don't even know we have that choice! We think that because we think a particular thought, it must be true! And we go off “half-cocked” as the saying goes, creating lives of misery and suffering for ourselves, simply because we assume the crazy thoughts we think are right. We never even question them.

But when we come to understand that it is not not what happens outside us that causes our feelings, but the thoughts we think ABOUT those happenings, we can begin to move towards sanity and forgiveness, which is essential for inner peace.

Forgiveness, simply put, means to let go of the unhappy, crazy-making stories we are holding onto, so we can begin to heal our minds and return to Reality – which is life as it is without an unhappy story attached.

Of course, when we feel deep down inside that we have committed the unforgivable, and that there is no hope for us, we cannot forgive, i.e. “let go of” our unhappy story because we need it desperately to justify why we did what we did! Oh woe on us when we decide we cannot be forgiven! Such a decision dooms us to a life of acting in ways that can only further prove how hopelessly unforgivable we are, and thus rob us of the love and respect for which we so desperately yearn.

There is never a peaceful moment within us from that day forward … until, or unless, we can come to recognize that there is only one true reason we do what we do – EVER – and that's because we believe what we think … and as long as we go on thinking the way we do, we are doomed to act out in unhappy, often destructive, ways.

The truth is that it's never too late to take steps to extricate ourselves from the internal Hell we have created by believing our excruciatingly painful thoughts. Forgiveness is the only way we can begin to mend our minds and hearts that have become shattered by extremely painful thoughts. Self-forgiveness is the only thing that can return us to peace.

My hope and prayer is that you find the peace that forgiveness can bring. I hold that as a possibility for you. I believe that is what our friend, your beloved, whose life you took, would want us both to do … to forgive you. She would want that for you, and for the children who lost not only their mother, but you, their father, as well. This too must be forgiven by you, if they are to be able to forgive you, or themselves, for hating you, the father they love.

It's a gutsy choice to make … the decision to give up blame (of oneself really, that blame that is then projected out onto the other in the form of accusation, simply to escape self-hatred), and to forgive. It takes a lot of courage to be more involved in looking for and owning our own part in the happenings of our life than we are to blame others for our pain. It starts with the realization that it is OUR thoughts, not what anyone else says or does, that determines our emotional state.

I do not know if this level of self-responsibility is something you are ready to do now – or ever. Reality always wins, that I do know – which means we will harvest the outcome tomorrow of the thoughts we believe today (The Law of Cause & Effect).

To get started on the path to forgiveness, we start with a simple question … ask it immediately upon the first sign of emotional distress … the question we must ask ourselves are: “Is this thought I am thinking Reality? Do I know that absolutely?”

My challenge is essentially the same as yours … I too must forgive … you? Yes, but I know that to do that I must start with owning that part of myself that, like you, can get so confused in my thinking that I act in ways I later deeply regret. That is the story you mirror to me … By questioning it, I am able to apply the Guiding Principles and return to Reality and sanity. My unhappy story begins to dissolve in the light of day.

In essence, we forgive others, because we need forgiveness too. We forgive because to do so sets us free and delivers us to peace. We do it because it's the kindest, most healing thing to give ourselves and the world around us, because a soul at peace with Self is a peaceful soul.

All of us get caught up in our limited story on occasion, it's not a problem … it's just what human's do! We are designed to be dysfunctional! (perhaps you've noticed! ;))

Humans simply believe the thoughts we think without questioning them at all. We simply, and naturally, think what we think is true. We mistake our thoughts about Reality for being Reality! They are NOT the same thing at all!

One way to tell the difference between Reality and our story about Reality is to ask ourselves if what we believe can be argued – Reality/truth is inarguable – so when we attempt to argue a point of view as being “right” we can know immediately that we are pushing our story about Reality, which might, or might not have anything to do with Reality at all.

But none of this is a problem.

Actually, I believe it's not only not a problem to get hooked by our story, but that it is, indeed, a necessary part of the refinement process we must go through to mature as individuals. We have to get caught up (hooked) in our unhappy stories, for how else are we going to see the repercussions of what we believe, much less be able to forgive ourselves for who we become when we believe the fear and resentment-based stories we think except to play them out in visible fashion?

From playing out our stories about life, we come to understand that all humans do what we do because we believe what we think. Knowing that allows us to begin to stand back, rather than to automatically react in ways that only perpetuate the unhappy story we are believing.

Seeing times of stuckness and getting hooked as something necessary to our evolutions allows us to value highly the comeuppances and sticky places in our life circumstances, for they show us the obstacles that are currently standing between us and peace.

It is the situations and people we know that cause us to ruffle our feathers in distaste and dissent the most that are our biggest gift-bringers; they bring us the gift of freedom by helping us to recognize where we still hold ourselves hostage to unhappy beliefs and limited story. We may not like these people, OR the lessons they bring, but they are essential players in our spiritual, emotional, and mental maturation process, nonetheless.

This process of maturation, of growing-up, that we, as humans, are invited to engage in is one I have spent a great deal of time learning and sharing about. From that study and years of experimenting with the principles that underlie the work I do with others, has come the Reality Formula™, a method that is based on founding principles in the work of self- refinement that teaches, for instance that: When we believe what we think, we automatically feel and act as if our thoughts are true, and when we act as if what we think is true, we begin to act in ways that will invite others to give us the evidence we need to prove our thoughts true.

Good or bad, this simple principle applies. When we believe unhappy thoughts we create an unhappy personal world … that becomes our personal reality. When we believe happy thoughts, we create a much happier world of peace, love, and abundance. Sounds simple … and it is … but not necessarily easy – at all!

Sometimes the awakening to consciousness process is a really painful one. Sometimes we must be shown in loud noise, and chaos how it is we stand in the way of peace and Reality. Sometimes we must become broken, like shattered glass, so that Reality can be glimmered through the broken shards of the iron-clad mind-set of our totally made-up story about it.

We go through tough times often on our way to learning that it is not what we experience that dictates what we believe, but what we believe that determines what we see. This is true only every time! And once we get it … we can begin to cooperate with the process that is unfolding in us, rather than to fight it tooth and nail.

The Reality Formula™ is a consciousness refining process that is designed to inspire an evolving maturity where the observer or higher consciousness rules our choices, instead of the victim-ego that prefers to slide into an unconscious perception of ourselves as victims at the mercy of life. Instead we come to see that everything we encounter serves to enlighten us further.

The turn around happens when we stop seeing the world as being “against,” “at,” or “done to” us, and come to see the incredible way it mirrors for us the state of our relationship with ourselves.

We discount a natural, powerful, highly effective tool for teaching our kids essential skills for life, when we fail to use food and the ritual of family mealtime to support life lessons. We have this powerful motivator called food readily available to us for teaching purposes, if we but knew to take advantage of it! After all, every human being must eat EVERY DAY to live. What better way to inspire our children to cooperate and take responsibility for themselves than by using the incentive of hunger and good food to eat?

Why not use this daily ritual and favorite pastime of most humans, for instruction? Not just to teach them to ‘eat their veggies,' but also to show them how to come into healthier relationships with themselves, their family, and the world?

Before I go further, let me explain that our ultimate goal for each and every child is to offer them tools that will prepare them to live life in Reality, and thrive. Daniel and I recognize that every moment is a teaching moment with children; and that desire is the motivation behind everything we do with children.

Repeatedly, we have found that mealtime offers the BEST teaching moments for kids. For one thing, when kids come to the table hungry (meaning they haven't been nibbling on snacks all morning), we have their complete attention. We ask them to eat salad, or the healthier foods first. We find it best to start with SMALL SERVINGS (we set ourselves up for failure when we ask our children to eat a plate of food based on adult size portions). A couple of bits of lettuce, a little chunk of tomato, a black olive, two bites of carrot, etc. serves as a salad for a 3 to 8 year old (they can always request more after they have eaten what's been served them).

We teach children that they have the same choice that all humans have, to either go along with Reality, or to resist it. Resisting Reality hurts more. This is true whether we are 10 or 60 years old. We can fight against Reality, but sooner or later, we start to notice that Reality wins – every time. And no amount of our blustering against it changes that simple fact. So, again, we get to decide whether to go on fighting against it, OR to find a way to not only make peace with the way things are, but to even learn how to use the way things are to work for us! This is the road to peace.

To children, we, as parents and caregivers, are their Reality. How we interact with them teaches them what to expect from the world. When we ask our children to eat everything on their plate, but then don't hold firm with that expectation, we teach them that resisting Reality works. The more we cave in on boundaries set, rules established, or consequences promised, but undelivered, the more we reinforce the unhappy belief that they can outsmart, outwit, beg, plead, whine or weep enough, and Reality will give them what they want. But you and I know that is not usually the case outside the shelter of the family. When we as parents can no longer shape, soften, manipulate our children's reality to make it more comfortable for them, the world steps in and is not nearly so kind. Suddenly, our children find themselves, as adults, feeling battered by life as a result of throwing themselves headfirst against the walls of Reality, trying to win a battle they can never win; instead they only hurt themselves, and those who try to rescue them.

Making peace with Reality is just one of the many lessons our kids can learn at mealtime. We ask our children to eat healthy food whether they like it or not, simply because it is fuel and medicine for the body. It is part of what they must do to learn how to take proper care of themselves. And we ask them to eat their food whether they like it or not, because we understand that Reality often asks us to “swallow” things in life that we don't necessarily like, and it is important to learn how to make peace with it, as a kinder way to treat ourselves.

Here's a sample lesson offered during mealtime that occurred at our most recent family weekend intensive.

It was at lunch the first day of our Victim Free Parenting Retreat, and the nine year old spoke to me with wonder in his voice, “How do you know this stuff? I never heard any of this before!” I had simply asked him if it was the beans on his fork that was making him hold his nose, or if it was the thought, “beans make me sick” that had him doing it. I followed with another question for this precious nine year old genius, who had decided he could not, no way, no-how, eat the beans that had been served to him for lunch. “What would be different right now, do you suppose, about those five black beans on your fork if you weren't thinking the thought, “beans make me sick?” Immediately he said, “Well I probably wouldn't be holding my nose, would I?”

“Hmmm … probably not!” I replied, “did you know that you don't have to believe what you think about beans? You could make friends with your beans instead!”

Suddenly he SAW it! He had a choice! We both laughed out loud. It took a few minutes for him to translate the lesson to the fork, but he did, and before we knew it, the whole group was celebrating with him his choice to cooperate with Reality by eating his beans! But none were as proud of his accomplishment as he was for himself! He had chosen to make peace with the Reality of beans for lunch!

Nobody forced him to eat his beans; he had the right, we informed him, to choose not to eat them (and we would understand, there was no punishment, no judgment for his choice). However, all choices carry consequences (another life lesson learned at the dinner table) and we must pay the price for whatever choice we make. To choose not to eat his beans meant he would have to miss out on the activities planned for the afternoon, until and unless he chose to eat them. This precocious nine year old chose to eat the beans on his plate BECAUSE he preferred the consequence of that choice, which was a chance to participate with his friends that afternoon in fun activities! He, like each of us must,learned that when we choose to go along with Reality, we are happy, and when we choose to resist Reality, we suffer. It's that simple. This nine year old was learning something that many of us, as adults, have not yet realized. This is one true example of life lessons learned at mealtime. Here are some other lessons we can teach at mealtimes:

How to prepare food, season it, it's medicinal value, and what part of the body it benefits How to listen to the body, and discipline the senses How to befriend Reality How to be a good listener Gratitude for what we have How to share Politeness and good manners Appropriate boundaries & respect How to prepare good food Self-control & self-discipline Acceptance of Reality (“No, you cannot have something else to eat, this is what we're having.”) How to be a good helper & team player Spiritual connection through family bonding Obedience and cooperation … and much more!

Family's that come together at mealtime, even two or three times a week, offer a place of connection where real life happens – a place where important lessons of life can be taught in words, but more importantly, lessons are shared through the use of Reality based tools that can be ‘served up' along with good, nutritious food at mealtime.

So much can be accomplished at mealtime that you may find it worthy of the time and effort involved in preparing a meal to sit down together with your family for a life of learning that will feed us, and our children, for a lifetime.

For more articles on raising kids in Reality, check out our Reality Formula for Kids™ at www.realityformula.com